On a wall of his rented room in Queens, Moises Ismael Locón Yac has paid tribute to the city where he has lived for seven of his 27 years: a poster of the Empire State Building and a framed cover from The New Yorker — a drawing of a cat looking out an apartment window at the cityscape.

Now the room is decorated with votive candles that his cousin lit after Mr. Locón, a Guatemalan immigrant, vanished during the fire that engulfed part of a block in the East Village where he works as a busboy.

“I have a strong pain in my heart because I haven’t seen him in a day,” the cousin, Pablo Yac, said in an interview on Friday evening. “I have a pain in my heart — for him and for the other families who don’t know where their loved ones are.”

The extent of the losses caused by the blaze this week came into sharper focus on Friday as residents and workers dealt with lives upended.

Three apartment buildings were reduced to rubble and another was severely damaged by the fire. Twenty-two people were wounded, four of them critically. Residents of 144 apartments in 11 buildings were evacuated.

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A poster of Nicholas Figueroa, who was unaccounted for after the fire on Thursday, was taped to a store window on First Avenue.CreditAndrew Renneisen for The New York Times

At least 30 people were provided with temporary housing by the city, Mayor Bill de Blasio said, while others found shelter at the homes of friends and relatives or at hotels.

And while there were no confirmed deaths, two people remained unaccounted for, the authorities said: Mr. Locón, who worked at Sushi Park on the ground floor of 121 Second Avenue, one of the buildings that collapsed, and Nicholas Figueroa, 23, who had been on a lunch date at the same restaurant.

Mr. Yac, 23, who shared Mr. Locón’s room in a two-story house in Elmhurst, said he last saw his cousin Thursday morning. Mr. Locón, who took pride in his collection of sneakers, was wearing a yellow tracksuit jacket and red Air Jordans.

Since arriving in New York, Mr. Locón has held a series of low-wage restaurant jobs and had been planning to return to Guatemala this year to reunite with his girlfriend.

He had come to New York “to work, to put money together,” Mr. Yac said, but he had also developed a fondness for the city. His cover picture on his Facebook page was a photograph of the Empire State Building; a baseball cap hanging from a bicycle in his room was emblazoned with the words “New York.”

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Moises Ismael Locón Yac, 27, worked as a busboy at Sushi Park in the East Village.

Mr. Yac said their family in Guatemala had been notified and that relatives in New York, including two of Mr. Locón’s brothers, had been visiting hospitals and keeping a vigil near the accident site. He said he had stayed up Thursday night praying and had been unable to sleep. The candles sat on a television stand beside statues of the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ.

The restaurant’s owner, Hyeonil Kim, 59, said in an interview Friday that he was grief-stricken over the disappearance of Mr. Locón.

Mr. Kim said he and his employees had also been visiting hospitals looking for Mr. Locón. “Not just me, but all the employees are eager to find him,” he said.

Mayor de Blasio seemed to speak to the struggle — practical, emotional and spiritual — that many in the neighborhood were enduring when he said on Friday: “This city knows how to handle adversity. We never welcome it, we know it will come. But we know how to handle it.”

According to Fire Department officials, 121 Second Avenue had four apartments and 16 occupants, and 119 Second Avenue, which also collapsed, had eight apartments and 16 occupants. The third collapsed building, 123 Second Avenue, had three units, according to property databases.

Colson Barnes, who lived with three roommates on the fourth floor of 121 Second Avenue, said she and two roommates were out of the building when the fire started. The fourth roommate escaped before the collapse and was not hurt, Ms. Barnes said.

Ms. Barnes, an advertising sales assistant at Town and Country Magazine, returned to the neighborhood but was unable to get close to the block because of a police cordon. Then the roommates met up at a restaurant down the street.

“My friend has a place uptown and we went there to sleep,” she said, adding that she has since moved into the Standard Hotel. Two of her roommates left town, she added.

Gregory Bohdanowycz, a resident of 125 Second Avenue, which was still standing but ravaged by fire, said that when he heard the explosion, he grabbed his jacket and, along with his pit bull, sprinted down seven flights of stairs from his apartment.

He, like hundreds of other residents of the area who were evacuated, has not been back to his apartment. He wondered whether the flames had eaten through his walls and destroyed his belongings.

“I have to stop thinking about it,” Mr. Bohdanowycz, 35, said Friday afternoon. “I am hoping the stuff is there. If it’s not, I still feel grateful that I made it out.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A18 of the New York edition with the headline: The Extent of Losses Begins to Come Into Focus for Families, Friends and Residents. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe